Budget tracker app Lista raised over $5 million in the recent funding round led by Singapore-based venture capital firm Openspace Ventures. Launched in the latter part of 2021, the financial management platform is offered free to use for small businesses and even individuals who want to monitor the flow of their finances.

“We believe (Lista’s) vision and business model have the potential to be a transformative tool for Filipinos, especially as they continue to bounce back from the pandemic,” said Gervin Yang, executive director at Openspace, which has also invested in Indonesia’s GoTo (Gojek) and the Philippines’ Kumu.

Lista (direct translation “list,” verb) said it will use the fund to expand the app and develop products that will help more people manage personal finances.

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“About 30% of our user base are Filipinos who do not have any business but want to take charge of their personal finance,” said Khriz Lim, co-founder of Lista. “They monitor their salary, bills payment, and even savings using Lista. We think this is a category that holds a lot of growth potential for us.

Lista will use the additional funding to hire talents that would help it in product development and engineering. The startup is now looking at introducing new verticals, including payments and credit, this year, hoping to contribute to the Philippine government’s call for financial inclusion.

New verticals

Aside from Openspace Ventures, Lista’s existing investors East Ventures, Saison Capital, and 1982 Ventures also participated in the round.

 Additional new investors include Stephen CuUnjieng (former chair and CEO of Evercore Asia), Aurelien Pichon (Google), Roland Ros (CEO, Kumu), Rexy Dorado (president, Kumu), and more. Earlier individual backers include Brian Cu (former president of Grab Philippines), Willy Arifin (Monde Nissin Family Ventures), Amrish Rau (CEO of Pinelabs), Kunal Shah (founder of CRED), and Jitendra Gupta (CEO of Jupiter Bank), among others.

“We are grateful for the trust these investors have given, not just in us, but in the vast potential of the rapidly developing fintech industry in the Philippines,” said Aaron Villegas, co-founder of Lista. “We continue to grow organically at a very accelerated pace, but we also seek out opportunities beyond what we are doing. We have a very aggressive pipeline.”

Lista now has over 1,000,000 downloads. The app’s most notable feature is it can be used without data or WiFi connection, which is one of the main concerns among small businesses in remote areas in the Philippines. Its UI is straightforward and very easy to use.